NASA Satellites Show Mississippi River Floods From Space

By IBT Staff Reporter On 05/12/11 AT 3:02 PM

As floods ravage the southeast part of the country, NASA satellites have captured the images from outer space.

The Mississippi River water level reached 48 feet in Memphis, Tenn., on May 10, according to the U.S. National Weather Service. It was the highest water level for Memphis since 1937. Thousands have been evacuated by the floods and the area has declared a state of emergency.

As the agency has done before with other disasters, NASA was able to capture photos of flood from outer space using two separate cameras. The photos on the top were used with the Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper. Taken by the NASA Earth Observatory, they show in natural color the area around Memphis as it would look to the human eye. The second image by Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper shows non flood conditions.

Below those photos are three images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua over the past two weeks of Arkansas. The top image is during the flood and the bottom is before the flood. The photo at the very bottom is a larger image of the flood conditions.